Willow garden tour returns with five stops showcasing local blooms

What you need to know:

• The Willow Garden Club's free 41st annual garden tour will take place July 25, featuring five diverse stops, including Coyote Gardens, a community garden, a peony farm and other local landscapes.
• Visitors can meet gardeners, ask questions and gather ideas for growing in Alaska's northern climate.
• The event began as a way for local gardeners to share their work and now attracts visitors from across Southcentral Alaska while fostering community connections and a love of gardening.
• Short on time but need the local news scoop? Get free weekly news in your inbox for Mat-Su, from Mat-Su.

WILLOW – A free annual garden tour in Willow will offer inspiration for local gardeners and visitors alike, giving attendees a peek inside some of the area's most impressive gardens, organizers said.

The Willow Garden Club will host its 41st annual tour July 25, showcasing fragrant flowers and abundant vegetable gardens at five stops selected to highlight local gardeners' green thumbs, organizers said.

"There are some amazing gardens out there," Willow Garden Club Publicist Bev Blakeslee said. "It's amazing what people do in their yards."

This year’s tour includes Coyote Gardens, which is known nationwide for its beauty and cold-climate plants. Other stops include the Church on the Rock Community Garden, which grows a variety of edible plants harvested and shared among members and local food banks; a garden designed to incorporate the natural landscape; and a large peony farm featuring more than 3,500 plants at the height of the season. Chaga Chicks and Northern Spirits Rustics also are returning to the lineup.

"We have quite the variety," Blakeslee said.

Each stop includes the chance to chat with the garden's owner and grower, allowing participants not only to tour the gardens but also to gather ideas. Visitors often arrive with gardening questions and leave with solutions for improving their own gardens, Blakeslee said.

"The owners are usually very welcoming and just a wealth of information on what works best for them, what maybe doesn't work for them," Blakeslee said.

The tour started as a way for local gardeners to get together and share what they were creating in their backyards. It has since grown to attract visitors from across Southcentral Alaska.

Kathy Mailer, a longtime member of the Willow Garden Club, moved to Willow in 2002 and attended her first tour to learn what growing at northern latitudes had to offer. A visit to Coyote Gardens inspired her to build her own cold-climate garden, something she couldn't have done at her former home in California.

"I went up to Coyote Gardens ... and got totally inspired because I've never seen a garden like that before," Mailer said. "That got me really interested in gardening."

After a couple of years, Mailer watched her cold-climate garden flourish using information she learned from other gardeners. Eventually, her yard was featured on the tour.

"When I saw how much abundance of flowers and beauty you could create, that's what I was inspired to go for, was an English garden," Mailer said.

While it's been a few years since her garden was featured on the tour, Mailer still attends every year because there's always something to learn from her neighbors. She said it's a community event where friends reconnect and share ideas.

"I love going to see them because there's something different, everyone has their own vision of what a garden should be or could be," Mailer said. "I think you always get ideas and there's a lot of camaraderie."

Blakeslee said she hopes to keep the garden tour going so it can inspire new gardeners just as it inspired her.

"I want to follow tradition. It's always been here," Blakeslee said. "I remember going to it years ago. And I don't want to see it go away. We work really hard to find gardens and try to make it different."

The tour begins at 10 a.m. and runs until 3 p.m. Maps will be available beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the Willow Community Center. The self-guided tour requires participants to provide their own transportation between gardens, organizers said.

-- Contact Kyle Wilkinson at contact@matsusentinel.com